The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division waded into one of Los Angeles' biggest school fights this week, moving to join a federal lawsuit that accuses the Los Angeles Unified School District of discriminating against White students through race-based rules that help determine funding, class sizes and magnet school access at so-called PHBAO campuses. The motion, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, asks to intervene on the plaintiffs' side and would allow the federal government to seek the same remedies the private suit demands. The case, first filed in January by the 1776 Project Foundation, targets a decades-old desegregation program that LAUSD maintains was created to support historically underserved schools.
DOJ says LA funding formula sorts students by race
In a press release on Wednesday, the Justice Department said the Predominately Hispanic, Black, Asian and Other, or PHBAO, program "categorizes students by race and by the race of their neighbors in order to determine school funding and magnet school admissions," a practice federal officials say raises serious civil-rights concerns. "Treating Americans equally is not a suggestion, it is a core constitutional guarantee that educational institutions must follow," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the department's statement.
What the lawsuit says is at stake
The complaint contends that LAUSD designates a school as PHBAO when 70% or more of its resident students are non-Anglo and then directs extra staffing, a lower student-teacher target and guaranteed parent-teacher conferences to those campuses, according to the 1776 Project Foundation. Court filings and subsequent coverage report that roughly 600 of the district's campuses carry the PHBAO label while fewer than 100 do not, a gap that plaintiffs argue leaves many students at non-PHBAO schools without comparable support, as detailed by the Los Angeles Times.
LAUSD keeps quiet but defends equity efforts
The district is not talking specifics, citing the ongoing litigation. A spokesperson declined to comment on the details of the case but reiterated that LAUSD is committed to giving all students meaningful access to services and opportunities, according to the East Bay Times. LAUSD has framed the PHBAO system as part of long-running desegregation and resource-allocation efforts focused on neighborhoods that have historically received fewer educational resources.
Legal stakes and a national flashpoint
If the court lets the Justice Department intervene, the federal government could seek the same relief as the private plaintiffs, including a court order blocking LAUSD from using race-based classifications in either funding decisions or magnet school admissions. The move arrives amid a broader national push to revisit desegregation orders dating back to the Civil Rights Movement era, a trend highlighted by the Associated Press and other outlets.
What happens next in court
The Justice Department's motion to intervene was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and the department's filing and proposed complaint are available on the Justice Department website. The judge must now decide whether to allow the federal government into the case. If the motion is granted, the lawsuit is expected to move quickly into rounds of legal briefing and potentially a hearing over whether LAUSD's PHBAO designations pass constitutional and statutory scrutiny.
